We want the check to fail to detect mis-programmed eeproms. Thechecksum test isn't conclusive, but it does provide an indicationsomething is wrong.

> We have lots of boxen that for some reason always fail the > checksum, but the E100 NIC operates just fine. Others might > have the same issue.

The assumption is that the eeprom was programmed correctly inmanufacturing, so your nics were 1) mis-programmed during manufacturing,or 2) modified later using some tool. Follow-up withlinux.nics@intel.com to make sure 1) isn't the case.